Arnold Mesches

The first thing Arnold Mesches saw when he came to work on the morning of Aug. 6, 1956, was shattered glass from his building's front door. He scrambled upstairs to his studio above Melrose Avenue and saw that all the art there -- more than 200 pieces -- was gone. Whoever it was had taken his radio, his art supplies, even the paintbrushes he had left in turpentine.

The first thing Arnold Mesches saw when he came to work on the morning of Aug. 6, 1956, was shattered glass from his building's front door. He scrambled upstairs to his studio above Melrose Avenue and saw that all the art there -- more than 200 pieces -- was gone. Whoever it was had taken his radio, his art supplies, even the paintbrushes he had left in turpentine.

In Arnold Mesches' paintings, vigorous brushwork embodies turmoil. On the one hand it describes the tumult of what's depicted--the whirling uproar of a Coney Island carnival ride, for example, or the tangled patterns of global migration undertaken by Eastern Europeans in the 20th century. On the other hand the chaotic jumble of individual human memory is denoted. Between the two, our sense of history accumulates.

In Arnold Mesches' paintings, vigorous brushwork embodies turmoil. On the one hand it describes the tumult of what's depicted--the whirling uproar of a Coney Island carnival ride, for example, or the tangled patterns of global migration undertaken by Eastern Europeans in the 20th century. On the other hand the chaotic jumble of individual human memory is denoted. Between the two, our sense of history accumulates.

* Arnold Mesches: Echoes (Ben Maltz Gallery, Otis College of Art and Design, Westchester, [310] 665-6905). "Read for Knowledge" (1966), above, an acrylic on canvas, is included in a century survey of Mesches' paintings, drawings, collages and writings. Ends Aug. 10.

A clean and commodious new gallery space launches itself with a debut exhibition for Los Angeles painter Robert Ramirez. He does a perfectly credible job of juggling the established conventions of Neo-Expressionism. Beneath gobs and slashes of raw-hued pigment lurk images of horses, women and--mostly--monumental male nudes. Everybody is suffering some silent agony even though they appear perfectly young and hale.

Throughout the Cold War, the U.S. government employed thousands of snitches to rat out their neighbors, co-workers and friends. These low-level informants were nothing like spies in the movies. Misbehaving playboys, such as James Bond, did not fill their ranks. Nor did clear thinkers whose can-do efficiency approached that of the team players on "Mission Impossible." In the real world, these journeyman snoops were wannabe patriots.

The creepiness inherent in many of the science-fiction films from the 1950s played on the paranoia and fear wrought by the dual threats of communism and nuclear annihilation. Whether through allegory or straight propaganda, the movies exploited real and imagined perils for audiences of the era. The Skirball Cultural Center has assembled four such features for the "Red Menace Film Series," suggested by images in the current exhibit, "Arnold Mesches: FBI Files."

Pop Music With the Osbourne family firmly installed in America's living rooms via MTV, the spotlight on Ozzfest has never been brighter. Ozzy's annual high-decibel, multiple-stage road show has become the summer camp of choice for the headbanger set, as well as a platform to fame for bands on the brink. The perplexed patriarch, right, headlines as the tour pulls in at Devore's Glen Helen Blockbuster Pavilion on Saturday, with support from System of a Down, P.O.D., Rob Zombie and more.

The 1953 executions of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg aren't In "Unknown Secrets: Art and the Rosenberg Era," on view at Otis/Parsons Art Gallery through Jan. 6, 49 artists commemorate Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were executed as spies in 1953. The exhibition reminds us of how terribly fragile freedom is. Curated by Nina Felshin, "Unknown Secrets" will travel to eight U.S.

Back in the 1920s, entrepreneur Harry Heegar gave Beverly Hills its first office building, at Rodeo Drive and Santa Monica Boulevard. Mayor Will Rogers kept an office there. So did United Artists in the days of partners Chaplin, Pickford and Fairbanks. Out of the building's storefront offices, the Janss Corp. sold lots in a development called Westwood. Heegar was a Mason so loyal that he gave the top floor of his building to his lodge.

Many Americans feel their country's recent military victory in the Persian Gulf was really quite lovely as wars go. It was fast, decisive and, they say, lifted a pall of shameful insecurity left over from the Vietnam era. Hooray for our side. As if to counter this euphoria, UCLA just opened new exhibitions that remind us all wars are brutal and tragic. They concern Vietnam. There are poster exhibitions in the basement of Haines Hall.